Hold on to that nut!

Well it might sound a bit corny, but I am glad that spring is here! Back where I come from, 'bad weather' means too much sun! My city, Coimbatore, was one of the few in the state ('Bundesland' for my German friends) which could boast of a nice weather ( meaning 'colder' than average). My sojourn in the US was also in Phoenix most of the time, so winter was not such a familiar term. Germany kinda makes you crave for the sun I guess. So here you go, across my street , the park in full bloom,

Was at Roermond, Netherlands yesterday with a friend for (his) shopping. My first trip to Netherlands, besides the layovers at Schipol. A bright sunny day was perfect for the classic mall experience ( today it started raining again though!). Pumas , Ralph Laurens, Hugo Bosses all by the dozen ( Ok, I might have been a bit imaginative about the Hugo Boss part, but the rest is true), a much needed fix in shopping desert, Germany. And guess Germans think likewise too, becos everyone and his dog was German there( if you are driving across several kilometres into another country to shop for bargains, remember taking your dog, may be handy in forcing people to give way to you inside crowded shops that had "SALE" signs on!). All the shops spoke German. In fact I got by with my rudimentary German for the first time, knowing well that I was in Netherlands and that the shop folks wouldn't point out mistakes in a customer's language skills ( ha!). It was then that I discovered that speaking German, among other rewards, could help one get free ketchup. Yeah, was in McDonald's, dont ask me why, my friend tugged me along, and ended up forgetting to "order" ketchup ( See earlier Post). Cursing myself, I walked into another counter and asked for "Ketchup" in German ( well the 'ketchup' part is the same, the rest of "May I have a pack of ..." in German). Surprise, The guy looked up, spoke in accent free German ( compared to other Dutch there), asked me where I was coming from (chest up, 'Duisburg'), told me he was from Dortmund and lo, passed the ketchup for free. Now considering that 90% of the crowd there was German ( rest 10% were the original bargain hunters - Indians), I wonder if he did that to everyone!

First things first...er...you might notice that the 'Psychdelic' look is gone...Besides the fact that it was shitty, I cannot afford to annoy my most loyal reader.....MSavig....here you go.......forgive me for just the small piece left.....it was heartwrenching to rip the whole thing off!!

Starting at the bottom of the food chain in the corporate jungle 'again', has its owns benefits. Most mistakes I make at work now are dismissed as that of a 'learner' or 'new guy' while a a year ago I would have had to face some serious shit and appear as an idiot to guys working under me...( if any of you guys is reading this, I of course know that you used to think that I was a 'Vollidiot', mistake or not). But then again its the bottom of the food chain and so everyone who walks by kinda tramples on you.

Anyways, I have a few German colleagues of similar experience levels joining my company over the past few days and I am kinda working with some of them. And everytime there is a discussion involving a senior colleague and there is need of an idea, the new guys kinda say the exact same thing but processed through a 'Simpsons-vocabulary-converter'. The first few times, I thought it was either

a) a serious case of 'lickin it up to the senior guys' or
b) a case of filling up temporary losses of intellectual capacity

or some combination of the two. But then these are really smart guys, even to my 'Klugscheiser' mind ('Smartass') and the thing was too often and too obvious and every time the senior guy acknowledges their 'nods' with a big smile. Besides being bored to death because of listening to the same things in different versions (its like watching Mike Meyers in Austin Powers, even more annoying) this whole parroting thing makes those marathon German meetings seem as if I am living in slow motion through them. Then as I watched it more, I realized that it was some kinda ritual where the senior guy is reassured that the new guys understood him correctly. And the senior guys expect it, the acknowledgement. Its like the <'Master'> sequence in Shaolin movies, I guess

Nirvana moment, and then things were cool. I now realise how much I'd be driving these senior guys nuts with my annoying interruptions and silent phases. I just wasnt following the protocol. Blame my experiences in US and India for that, you speak only when you at least present a new idea ( or was I just too low level in the organization and this is how management functions all over the world?).

I'll stop overanalyzing this now. I AM turning German!. May be it is just a simple case of 'licking it up'.

All the crazy meetings have had an effect. Yeah, I decided to play around a bit with colors and stuff, so here's the result. I know it could have been better, but its 3 pm now and I better have something to eat!

After a month of working with tonnes of hyphenated names ( ending with 'z') which I would have frowned at a decade ago because of all the crappy formulas I associated with such names from the Physics book, I am ready for my take on the German workplace. Here's my laundry list of achievements and headaches:

1. My first 7 hour meeting.
2. Got used to decision making in the higher echelons. You make cool ideas, great ways to implement them, send them to the audience before the presentation, get their approval before you present it and then on D-day go in front of them and present the idea - "Yawn, tha looks familiar, oh I remember, I asked the color to be changed from Blue 132 to Blue 131 and the idiot presenter changed it to Blue 133". Wow, it kinda is tough when you deliver the 'zing' in the idea at 7 pm on the evening before the meeting by email and wait for the response for 6 more hours of work. Is this only a European thing? ( I resist from saying just 'German' because I heard from folks in similar positions that the rest of Europe is even worse). Learn from this,
   
   
   Imagine all the guys in the room getting an email the day before saying, there"s gonna be a bald old guy jumping around like a monkey tommorrow and you are supposed to cheer. I am overdoing it, but yeah you get the general drift I hope!
3. Can decipher English phrases. Well, er, I mean English phases which are direct translations of German ones, like'cut the elephant into two' ( means break/divide the problem, hard not to laugh when you hear "First we go to China, find a partner and then cut the elephant into two"
4. Work till 9 pm, go around pub hopping past midnight and have an insane meeting at 7:30 am the next morning- day-after-day!
5. Never say that a meeting was good. Pick out flaws like, "yeah, the guy in the pale blue tie kept drinking too much coffee and we did not get anything" or I swear this one is real " the power cord could have been longer in that conference room - it impacted the zoom of the beamer"
6. Say "Tschuss!" in atleast 10 different ways ranging from the kiss-friendly to the fuck off variety
   
7. Eat fast, although I must say I am not making much progress on this one. Man, do Germans eat fast! And to think my Mom kept telling me to eat slowly because I dont chew stuff properly and I was the shining example of the perfect kid at the table who finished everything on his plate first. All that bad karma from my cousins!
   
8. Create cool sounding words - nachhaltigkeitverbesserungsmanagementsysteme!
9. Run down four floors, 500m of park, 2 stairs and 2 escalators under 4 min - everyday at 8;20 am if u see a guy doing this around Duisburg Hauptbahnhof (Central Station), it"s me

Ya dawg, have Internet again..Phew, it takes 4-6 friggin weeks to get an Internet connection...And friends tell me I have been extremely lucky....and I guess I am changing ( to the worse?) a bit too...otherwise why would I factor in the waiting time and apply for Internet connection at a place even before I move in there....damn...getting old....will be back soon...